Somewhere Between Hell and Serious Discomfort
by Kat-chan7
Summary: Yusuke recieve some very unwelcome help in his duties. Imagine that it's happening right between the Saint Beasts fight and the rescuing of Yukina.
1. Why Me, Why Earth?

Katsuyo stood outside of the huge doors, bouncing apprehensively on the balls of her feet. A little sweat trickled down her scalp under her hair, and she scratched the back of her head nervously. She contemplated wiping her sweaty palms on her pants, but she was sure that having damp handprints all over her clothes would not make a very good impression. 

_Well, _she thought, _It's__ now or never. With that, she closed her eyes and shouldered her way through the door before she could talk herself out of it. _

"Koenma-sama!" she shouted at the top of her lungs, her eyes still closed and her nose pointed straight at the ceiling as she attempted to keep her chin up like her teachers always reminded her to do. "Spirit Agent Katsuyo reporting! You summoned me here, sir?" 

"You don't need to yell, Kat!" a voice said from about the height of her knee, "I'm standing right here." Kat (who was slightly shocked that Koenma knew her nickname and was using it) opened her eyes and looked down. She was confronted by a knee-high boy wearing a blue and pink outfit and sucking on a pacifier. If she didn't know who he was, she would have burst out laughing, but under the circumstances she gulped loudly and stood even more rigidly at attention. 

Koenma sighed. "You can relax, kid," he said as she made his way back to the huge desk in the center of the room, "Now!" With that, he whipped out a large stack of papers and began poring over them while Kat began to feel more and more like she was in very deep trouble.

"I see here that you've just become a Spirit Agent," he stated. It wasn't a question, so Kat didn't say anything. But she couldn't help fingering the badge on her jacket a little in pride. The badge was red and white, and read "Spirit Agent" across the top and bottom. 

"In fact," Koenma went on, "You passed the test with flying colors." Kat felt a little better, and a lot prouder. But she still couldn't figure out why she had been summoned. Surely Koenma didn't just want to congratulate her on scoring highly on the exams she had taken. 

"You're a pyromancer," Koenma said, sounding half surprised, "And have managed to bring your fire techniques to a remarkable level for someone of your amount of training. You have moderate spirit awareness, slightly better spirit strength, but your adaptability is at top marks. Yes…" He seemed to be contemplating something for a minute before looking satisfied. "Yes!" he declared, "I think you will be the perfect person for the job!" Kat felt a little dizzy. 

"Umm…" she said quietly, "Sir?" 

"The job!" Koenma repeated, "Katsuyo, I have an assignment for you!" Kat suddenly felt a lot more dizzy, but also considerably happier. She had just become a Spirit Agent a little while ago, and she had her first case already! She snapped to attention again, this time with a smile that was slowly threatening to split her face in half. 

"Now!" Koenma said, jumping down from the desk to pace back and forth in front of Kat, "What do you know about the Spirit Detectives?" 

Kat hesitated, trying to dredge up what little knowledge she had of the Earth branch of Koenma's forces. Earth had never particularly interested her, and she suddenly felt as though she was being drilled by her teacher. 

"The Spirit Detectives work on Earth, eradicating what minor demons manage to slip out of Spirit World. They usually don't have as much training as the Agents, and are sometimes picked out of the human population as a needed?" Kat guessed. She hoped she had gotten it right. She had never been very good about studying Earth. She never expected to have to go there. But she certainly didn't want to look like a fool in front of Koenma. What if he decided that she wasn't ready for his assignment? 

"Precisely!" Koenma said, turning back to his desk. Kat sighed quietly in relief. "In fact, the lack of training most of the Spirit Detectives get is the exact reason I need you. Listen closely! The only Spirit Detective we have right now is one who's just been picked out, and has only had a couple of cases. It's granted that they were difficult, and that he completed them, but I must say that it's mostly been dumb luck. His name is Yusuke Yurameshi. Kat, I want you two to be partners!" Kat felt like the bottom had dropped out of her stomach.  

"S-_Sir?" she asked in panic, "Sir! I can't! I mean, I would… I would be handling cases on the Ningenkai?" _

"You bet!" Koenma said in a voice that brooked no arguments, "You will enroll in Yusuke's school, find lodging near where he lives, and generally live as a normal human. You will, of course, be informed when he gets a case, and it will be your job to accompany him and make sure he doesn't get himself killed!" Kat felt like she was going to faint. 

"But sir! I-I…" she stammered. She blinked several times in disbelief. "How long will I have to stay?" 

"For as long as I deem necessary," Koenma answered. Kat looked ready to spit molten steel, but she deflated quickly as she realized that the only way she would get out of this would be to challenge Koenma. That was something that she was sure she would never do. 

"When do I begin sir?" she asked resignedly, almost dazedly.  

"Immediately!" Koenma stated, sounding relieved that Kat hadn't put up a fight, "Yusuke should just be getting out of school now. You may go meet him, and from then on you're on your own!" He turned his back to her, strode back over to his desk, and began to stamp papers. Kat got the feeling that she had been dismissed, but she couldn't seem to make her legs move. Then she felt her eyes begin to water, and she rushed out of the room before Koenma realized she was crying. 

****

Kat stood in front of Sarayashiki Junior High with a scowl on her face. She couldn't believe that she was actually on Earth, the only place she didn't want to have to go. She remembered when she was chosen to be trained as a Spirit Agent. She had been very young. Since then, every day of her life and been filled with her training. She had learned to fight, learned to bring her pyromantic skills to the level at which she could use them effectively, and she had been prepared for the day when a huge case would come just for her, and she would be called upon to be a hero. 

"But instead, I'm stuck on Earth with a baby Detective taking care of the cases no one else cares about!" she shouted. It got a couple of stares from people on the sidewalk nearby, but she didn't care. 

Kat was fifteen by Earth years, and tall, with chocolate hair and eyes the color of brown sugar. Like most pyromancers, her skin was tanned nut-brown. She wore a tank top under a blue denim jacket, and loose pants held up with a drawstring. She had taken off her Spirit Agent badge so as not to attract questions, although she still had the long metal-lined pockets on the sides of her thighs that were filled with shuriken. They had always been her weapon of choice, and she felt naked without their familiar weight at her sides. Besides that, she now looked very much like a normal human girl. Only someone with excellent spirit awareness would be able to tell that she was from Spirit World now, and Kowenma had assured her that spirit awareness was not a common trait among humans. 

Just then, the bell rang. The harsh clamor was greeted by a low rumble of voices and footfalls as the students rushed out of the building. Kat scanned the crowd, trying to pick out the Detective she was supposed to be looking for. She had seen a picture before she had left, so she was reasonably sure that she would be able to find him.  

However, after the initial wave of kids had passed, she still hadn't seen him. She wondered if she had missed him in the crowd, and was about to go look for him, when someone tapped her on the arm. 

"Excuse me," someone behind her said, "Are you new here? You look sort of lost." Kat turned to find a sweet-looking girl with brown hair that hung in pigtails and wearing the Sarayashiki uniform. "I'm Keiko Yukimura!" the girl added. 

"Oh!" Kat said finally, "Arigato, but I'm not lost. I'm Katsuyo. I was looking for Yusuke Yurameshi. He goes to this school, right? Do you know him?" Keiko's face suddenly darkened. 

"You bet I know him!" she growled, "That brat Yusuke! No one takes me seriously as class representative because our class has such a low attendance average, and whose fault is that? I'm-too-good-for-school Yusuke, of course! You'd be lucky to see him in a classroom once a week! I'll bet he's out brawling with Kuwabara! At least _he comes to school sometimes." Keiko seemed to radiate energy as she continued to point out every one of Yusuke's shortcomings. This did not improve Kat's mood. _

"Umm," Kat interrupted, "Can you tell me where his house is? I really need to find him." 

"Sure!" Keiko said, "It's…" Suddenly, she looked like she had just realized something. "Hey! Are you part of that weird thing? You know, the Detective job? Is this about a new case?" Kat blinked several times. 

"Hey!" she said finally, "No one's supposed to know about that! How did you…" Keiko smiled at Kat's shock. 

"Don't worry," she assured Kat, "Only I and a few others know. Botan told me about it after Yusuke's last case." 

"Botan?" Kat asked weakly. She had been under the impression that no one on Earth knew about the Spirit Detectives." 

"Yeah!" Keiko went on, "Botan is Yusuke's friend. She's really nice! Maybe you'll meet her when you find Yusuke." Kat gaped silently. It seemed that she still had a lot to learn about the Spirit Detectives. 

****

"Well," Keiko said a few minutes later, "This is his house, but you'll be lucky to find him here. He's probably out somewhere fighting, like I said before." 

"Arigato, Keiko!" Kat said, "I'm sure I'll find him eventually." Keiko looked at Kat a little warily. 

"You know," she said, "You never answered my question. Is this about a new case?" 

"No," Kat said quickly, "Don't I wish! Now that I'm stuck down here on Earth, I'm probably never going to get a case!" Keiko looked at her a little strangely, but was silent. She shouldered her book bag and headed for the street.

Kat stood in front of the door for a few minutes before knocking impatiently. After a loud crash and a series of bumps and calls of "Just a minute!" the door opened and a face appeared. It was a tall, thin woman who looked a little disoriented. She had long brown hair that was very disheveled, and eyes that were half-closed and sleepy. She was clutching a brown bottle and had a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. 

"Oh!" the woman muttered dazedly, "Are you a friend of Yusuke's? Sorry, he's not home." Kat stared. She had seen very few humans in Spirit World, and only Keiko and the rest of the Sarayashiki students on Earth, but this by far was the strangest-looking of them all. She seemed sick, or as if she had just been hit hard on the head. 

"Umm…" Kat said finally, "Do you know where he is?" The woman seemed to be staring past her. Kat tried again. 

"Are you Yusuke's mother?" she said a little louder, "Do you know where he is?" 

The woman blinked a couple of times and focused back on Kat. "Yeah, I'm Yusuke's mom," she muttered. Kat waited uncomfortably before repeating herself. 

"Do you know where he is right now?" she asked again. 

"Who?" Yusuke's mother asked dazedly. 

"Yusuke Yurameshi!" Kat shouted impatiently, "I'm looking for him! Where is he?" Yusuke's mother blinked violently before saying confusedly, "Sorry, he's not home. Are you one of his friends from school?" Kat stamped her foot, frustrated. 

"Never mind!" she shouted in the woman's face, "I'll find him myself!" At that, Kat stomped off with a newly kindled hatred for Earth and all of its inhabitants. 

****

It was almost half an hour before Kat found him. She followed her spirit awareness to several likely places, but all turned out to be either mistakes on her part or simply the wrong person. Kat hadn't realized that there were so many people on Earth with noticeable spirit energy. 

Right as she was about to give up and go wait at his house, she saw Yusuke's face through the window of a restaurant. He was wearing a green outfit and huge sunglasses, and had scruffy-looking black hair. Kat sincerely hoped that he wasn't as stupid as his mother seemed to be. 

She strode inside, looking furtively around at the boys and girls seated around the place. Some were eating, and others were just sitting and talking. Yusuke was gazing out the window, looking bored with the world in general. 

"Yusuke Yurameshi?" Kat said officiously, "May I have a word?" A few people stared, but no one moved. Yusuke looked over his glasses at her. 

"Sure," he said, "In fact, you can have six: If Koenma sent you, buzz off!" Kat jumped at his immediate hostility, but then darkened. 

"Whether Koenma-sama sent me or not is none of your concern!" she insisted, "Come outside with me right now and I'll explain." Yusuke made a superior-sounding noise in his throat. 

"If you've got another case for me, you can forget it," he said, looking back out the window, "I just finished one! Now get lost." Kat kicked him in the shin so hard that he yelped. 

"Come!" she shouted, "Now!" Her words were punctuated by a few tongues of flame licking the ends of her hair. She hoped no one had noticed. Sometimes, when she got really angry, all of her hair burst into flames. 

Yusuke, though, definitely noticed. He grabbed her wrist and, before she could say another word, they were outside and down a short alley. Yusuke looked very tense. 

"I hope no one saw that," he said simply. Kat was a little shocked, but she quickly jerked her hand out of Yusuke's grip. 

"Listen, you!" she shouted, "I had it under control! You didn't need to drag me outside. I'm sure no one noticed." Yusuke rolled his eyes. 

"I thought you wanted to go outside," he said, "If you want, we could go back in and you could give me the stupid case in front of everyone!" Kat mouthed wordlessly, but quickly realized that he was right. 

She hated him for it.

"So, did Koenma send you?" Yusuke asked in a long-suffering voice. 

"Yes," Kat snapped, "But it's not what you think!" She took a deep breath before going on. "Yurameshi, I don't like this any more than you're going to, but…" Kat stopped. Suddenly, the idea of them as partners seemed too good for this punk. She changed the wording slightly. 

"Koenma sent me to baby-sit you, Yurameshi," she ended, satisfied with Yusuke's indignant expression, "He wants me to make sure you don't get into trouble, so I have to look after you for a while until you get the hang of being a Spirit Detective." Yusuke looked ready to kill. 

"And who are you, to be looking after me?" he asked indignantly, "I'm Detective of Spirit World!" Kat snarled a little.

"You are Spirit Detective of _Earth!" she snapped, "You are the earth-based branch of Koenma's forces against youkai, and definitely the weakest of them. _I _am a spirit agent, and I come from Spirit World, where we get real training and actually know a thing or two. You are a last resort, whereas my comrades and I are the first line of defense, so don't think I'm not any less disgusted by this!" _

"But why would he send someone like _you?" _Yusuke insisted. Kat flinched. Pyromancers were rare, even in Spirit World, and had always been associated a little too closely with fire youkai. She had always been a little discriminated against for it, but she hadn't thought that Yusuke would be able to tell.

"I mean," Yusuke went on, "You're a girl!" 

Kat gaped for several seconds after a slight double-take. "Why, you!" she gasped, lost for words. She was a _girl? What did that have to do with a single thing? She clenched a fist and cocked it to punch, and Yusuke thought he saw a few tongues of flame squirt out from between her fingers. _

Just, then, probably stopping a confrontation that would have resulted in one or more fatalities, a tall boy with curly red hair rounded the corner into the alley. He had several lumps on his head, and his right eye looked like it was going to become a massive bruise. 

"Yurameshi!" he shouted, breathing hard and looking somewhat dazed, "You can't just run out on a fight like that! You chicken!" Yusuke rolled his eyes.

"Kuwabara," he sighed, "I left you and your gang back there fifteen minutes ago. And I didn't run away. You were out cold. That means I _won, okay?" Kuwabara didn't seem to be listening. _

"Well, I've found you now!" he shouted, "And now I'm going to finish what we…" Suddenly, he happened to glance at Kat. "Hey…" he muttered, "Another pretty girl…" Just as suddenly, he rounded on Yusuke. "You creep! Keiko's supposed to be your girlfriend!" Yusuke turned the color of a beet. 

"Keiko is not my girlfriend!" he screamed with a definite note of panic. And, as the two boys came nearly to blows again, Kat backed against the wall. A single tear ran down her cheek as she found herself suddenly overwhelmed by the prospect of spending another second on this miserable planet. 

_I hate Earth! _Kat thought, and then she turned her tear-streaked face to the sky and screamed at the top of her lungs, "_I hate Earth! THIS ISN'T FAIR!" _

_****_

The next day, Kat went to Sarayashiki Junior High for her first day of classes. She had been informed that Koenma had already handled her enrollment, which had given her the distinct feeling that everything had been worked out without her, and that she had no say in what happened to her life. Needless to say, this did not make her happy. 

Even though Yusuke would have loved to cut class, Kat quite literally dragged him along. If she was going to a stupid Earth school, hell if Yurameshi wasn't! Much to her horror, Koenma had also arranged for her to be in all the same classes as Yusuke. When she realized this, even though she knew it made sense, she had accidentally caught the corner of her schedule on fire in her anger. 

"I'm going to have to learn to control that," she muttered to herself, trying to keep the burned spot covered, "In Spirit World it may freak people out a little, but here on Earth I could get in real trouble!" However, her resolve was put to the test when, right as she and Yusuke neared the first period classroom (the former dragging the latter by the front of his shirt), he wriggled free and escaped up to the roof. Just then, the bell rang, so Kat had to duck into class quickly instead of following him. 

The first thing she noticed (and this was the first thing she had to be happy about in a very long time) was that Keiko was in her class. Kat quickly chose a seat very close to her. Keiko gave her a funny look for a moment, but then smiled warmly. Kat grinned back, happy that she seemed to have made one friend. 

Shortly after everyone had settled into his or her seat, the teacher (who Kat thought looked a lot like her old Spirit Awareness teacher, who had not particularly liked Kat) announced that the class had a new student. Kat stared blankly until the whole class had turned to look at her, and she realized with a start who the teacher meant. With a red face, she stood quickly and shuffled up to the front of the class. Kat had never liked standing in front of a class, but she stared and the ground sheepishly as the teacher warned the class not to pick on her, and the class in question tittered quietly at Kat's embarrassment. After she shuffled quietly back to her seat, she spent the rest of the class staring into space mutinously. 

The rest of the classes passed just as badly, if not worse. Kat had never had need to learn things like algebra, she knew absolutely nothing about history (the history classes she had taken in Spirit World had covered things like demon invasions, not Ancient Rome) or science (Kat had never thought that she would have to know about _Earth science). By the end of the day, Kat was miserable. _

****

As soon as school let out, Kat leaped to her feet and cheered out loud. This earned her several stares, but she swept up her books and escaped before anyone could laugh. After dumping her books in her locker (which was swinging open a little, since she had managed to break the lock) she raced up the stairs to the roof. 

"Yurameshi!" she shouted as she burst through the door, "If you think you can ignore me just because you're a Spirit Detective, then you…" Then she blinked a few times and shut up. There was a girl in the Sarayashiki uniform sitting with Yusuke, and Kat was well aware that she wasn't supposed to be talking about Spirit World around humans. She tried to think of an explanation for her outburst, but luckily she was spared from having to make something up by the very same girl, who jumped down from where she had been sitting. She was tall and had light blue hair. There was something very familiar about her. Something that Kat couldn't quite put her finger on…

"Oh, you must be Katsuyo!" the girl said happily, putting her hands on Kat's shoulders, "I've been waiting to meet you ever since Koenma-san informed me that a Spirit Agent would be coming to help us! It's so nice to meet you!" She began shaking Kat's hand energetically. Kat's eyes got very big. 

"Yu- Yurameshi!" she shouted, her voice quavering the tiniest bit, "How the hell many people have you told about Spirit World?!" The girl, who was still shaking Kat's hand, laughed. 

"Oh, don't worry about me!" she said in a musical voice that sounded like it had never had anything to be unhappy about, "I'm Botan, Yusuke's assistant!" Kat immediately brightened, realizing that what had seemed familiar about the girl was the fact that she was from Spirit World.

"Yes!" she crowed, "Finally! Someone from Spirit World! My gosh, how do stand staying on this miserable planet?" Botan laughed again. 

"Are you joking? It's wonderful here!" she said cheerily, "Besides, I get to wear this cute outfit!" Botan plucked at her sailor-girl skirt. Kat grimaced. She hated wearing skirts. 

"Anyway, Yusuke would do better to keep his big mouth shut in cases other that this!" Kat put in. She was talking about Keiko, but neither seemed to understand. 

"Oh, you mean Keiko?" Botan finally realized, "Oh, don't worry about her. I didn't actually tell her anything, just that Yusuke is working at a part-time job for delinquents!" She was grinning at her own cleverness, and Kat almost burst out laughing too. When she looked for Yusuke to see how he was reacting, he was already at the bottom of the stairs. He had started to make his escape sometime before Keiko was even mentioned. Kat quickly dragged him back up, though she wasn't sure why. It would have been just as well if she hadn't had to deal with him, but she had felt that he deserved to be dragged somewhere. 

"Well," Botan said, switching to an all-business sounding voice, "I was just about to tell Yusuke about a case that we have to take care of." Yusuke moaned. 

"What?" he shouted, "I'm not going…" Botan clamped a hand over his mouth and went on. 

"It won't take long," she promised as Yusuke struggled, "It's just a minor demon that managed to slip into Earth. There's only one complication." 

Yusuke managed to struggle free right then, and put in moodily, "Yeah, I might have guessed there would be! I never get simple cases!" Kat rolled her eyes. 

"I think," she said haughtily, "That it sounds like exactly the kind of boring case I was expecting. I doubt that I'll _ever_ get an interesting case now that I'm stuck on Earth!" Botan gave her a funny look, but went on. 

"This demon's name is Shingo. He has dangerous psychic powers, which he has used to take a human hostage," she said, "It is probable that Shingo will attempt to use this human against us, since he knows that we cannot harm innocent humans." Kat rolled her eyes. 

"The hostage is the complication?" Kat sighed, "That's nothing! We grab the human, de-spell him, and drag the demon back to Spirit World." Kat crossed her arms and leaned moodily against the side of the stair railing. "I'll bet this is all I'm ever going to get to do here. Earth is for the Earthlings. I belong in Spirit World, where we get real cases!" Yusuke's patience snapped. 

"You don't call a telekinetic demon with a human hostage a real case?" he shouted, "You stuck-up brat! Just because you're from Spirit World and I'm from Earth doesn't mean you're superior!"

Kat grinned at him. "Oh, 'superior'?" she taunted, "That's a big word. Did you learn that the last time you went to school? That would make it, what? Last year?" 

"And where did you go to school?" Yusuke wondered, "Or did you burn it down because someone made you mad?" 

"I'll burn _this school down if you make me any madder!" Kat shrieked, and she looked serious enough that Botan decided to step in. _

"Now, now, you two!" she said firmly, stepping (rather bravely) between Kat (who looked ready to spit magma) and Yusuke (who was seriously considering tossing Kat off the roof). "Isn't this just a little childish?" 

"_NO!" they both shouted, trying to shove around Botan to wring each other's neck. _

_WHACK! BANG!_

Botan stood with her metal baseball bat that she had pulled out of Hammerspace, ready to deal out more blows if either should try to attack again. Kat sat on the ground alongside Yusuke, holding her head. 

"Ow!" she moaned, "That hurt!" Yusuke echoed her complaints. 

"Oh, you'll live!" Botan said, cheerful again, "Come on! We've got a demon to fight!" 

****

"So how are we going to find Shingo, anyway?" Kat asked. A few minutes had passed, and all three were now walking out of the school grounds. Kat had exercised a bit of her spirit awareness, but she couldn't sense any demons. She also didn't feel like telling Yusuke or Botan that spirit awareness was not her strong suit. 

"Oh, I thought that the great, mighty Spirit Agent should be able to find it for us!" Yusuke said. Kat looked like she had a headache. 

"And maybe the great, mighty Spirit Agent will burn the sniveling, idiotic Detective's dick off if he makes another sarcastic crack about her or where she comes from!" Kat said back, imitating Yusuke's sarcastic tone.

 "You should have a little more respect!" he shouted, "Earth is just as good as Spirit World, and Detectives are just as good as Agents! In fact, my last case was to take down the Four Saint Beasts! And I did it!" Kat snorted. 

"Koenma would never send a human on a mission of that importance!" she hissed, "I heard that the Beasts were destroyed when they attempted an invasion of Earth, but of course it was an Agent who finally killed them!" 

"You're wrong!" Yusuke shouted, looking very pleased with himself, "I took on all four, and I beat them, no sweat!" Kat appeared to be thinking very hard for a second before smiling evilly. 

"You know," she said slyly, though she was still astonished that he had taken on a case of such magnitude, "I think I _did _hear something about that! You only took on the final beast! The first three were destroyed by the demons Hiei and Kurama, and you had to tap into your _life energy to win your fight. The only reason you survived is because some other human saved you! But I thought that was a Spirit Agent, not a Detective. If it had been one of us, we would, doubtless, have handled it easily." Botan brightened. _

"Oh!" she said, "You mean Kuwabara! He's the other human that came!" Kat looked confused for a moment, then laughed. 

"You mean that boy you were fighting with yesterday?" she crowed, "You needed _his help to win?" _

While Kat and Yusuke argued on, Botan answered a sudden call on her communication mirror. 

"Yes, Koenma sir?" Botan said when she saw who it was.

"Botan!" came a voice from the mirror, "We know where Shingo is, more or less. A while ago we discovered a rather large group of humans headed towards the woods on the edge of town. They are presumably under Shingo's mind-control technique, or maybe something else could be at work." He proceeded to give Botan directions to the location of the humans, and told her to follow them to Shingo. "With any luck," he said, "This should be an easy one. But don't forget about his hostage or the safety of the humans you are now following! We don't want anyone getting hurt or killed or any mass mayhem breaking out!" 

"Right, sir!" Botan said as she snapped the mirror shut. She turned to Yusuke and Kat. During the time she had her back turned, Yusuke had managed to make Kat mad enough to make the contents of a nearby trash can burst into flames. Kat was now trying to force Yusuke's head into the flames while Yusuke kicked her repeatedly in the shins. 

"Come on guys!" Botan called as though there was nothing out of the ordinary going on, "We've got a lead. I'll explain on the way." Kat looked up, and the flames immediately dissipated. Yusuke took the opportunity to pick Kat up and throw her into the smoldering ashes. Kat came up sputtering and spitting ash. Fortunately for Yusuke, Botan was hurrying away and Kat had to follow quickly or be left behind. She promised to herself that she would kill Yusuke later. 


	2. Learning to Live with Misfortune

They had to run quite a few blocks, and Kat became more and more miserable with every step she took. She had never had occasion to wear a skirt more than a couple of times before, and she didn't like the one she was wearing now one bit. She wondered why the Sarayashiki uniforms couldn't be more practical (it didn't help that Yusuke had never bothered to put his on, and so looked a lot more comfortable). Since it looked like they weren't going to get a chance to change any time soon, Kat quickly slapped her Spirit Agent badge on her uniform. If she was going to fight in a skirt, she would do so as a representative of Spirit World. 

Just then, they rounded a corner and found themselves in a dingy alleyway. Kat was a bit taken aback by the sudden transition, but Yusuke had been in this part of town before. He ran around another corner in time to spot a group of people wandering through the alley. There were five, two women and three men, and they all had a look of apathy on their faces. Despite this, they looked like they definitely had a purpose. They were headed towards the forest, as Koenma had said. 

"Shingo must be close to where Hiei, Kurama, and Gouki the Kyukonki were hiding out that one time." Yusuke remarked as the girls ran up behind him, "They look like they're headed in that direction." Kat felt a shiver run up her spine when she saw them. She didn't need outstanding spirit awareness to know that there was something unusual about those people. 

"There's something wrong with them," Kat whispered, "I can't tell what, but it's weird." She felt like she was in a cemetery, or at a funeral, or some place where it was important to stay silent. Botan saw her face and was worried. 

"They're probably under hypnosis," she reassured Kat, who looked shaken. Kat shook her head. 

"That's not it," she whispered back, even though the people were now out of hearing distance, "It's something else." 

Nevertheless, all three kept following. They dodged around in the shadows until it became apparent that, whatever these people were, they either couldn't perceive what was going on around them or had such perfect apathy that they didn't care. After they made this discovery, they walked alongside the people for a while, but Kat became so agitated that she had to drop back and walk behind. Yusuke teased her, but was careful not to touch any of the people. Even if she was just a silly girl, Kat's fears might have had a basis in fact. 

Botan stared at the person closest to her. It was a woman of maybe twenty, and she looked like she might have been pretty if her face was not so pale, or her expression so vacant. Botan shuddered a little, but kept walking. 

When they reached the forest, even Botan and Yusuke stepped back. Shingo could be anywhere, and it wouldn't be very tactical to waltz right into his hideout along with five of his minions. Keeping in mind that they might stumble over him at any time, they were careful to keep hidden. 

All three crept quietly through the trees, being careful to look ahead before darting to the next hiding spot. Yusuke looked bored, Botan was excited, and Kat would have been annoyed by all the darting around if she still wasn't distracted by the five people. They frightened her, somehow. They were unnatural. 

Finally, Yusuke had his fill of darting from tree to tree and suddenly swung up into the branches. The trees were so close together that he could easily walk from branch to branch, and the leaves were thick enough that they hid him from view. Not one to miss an opportunity to show off, Kat swung up behind him. Usually, tumbling about on the limbs would have been child's play, but she was so overeager to show off that she tried for a flip to the next branch without first getting her balance. She slipped and crashed painfully to the ground. 

Yusuke, laughing, continued to walk easily along. Kat shook herself off, and swung up again. Her face was red. After that, she decided that just walking carefully along the treetops was fine. Botan continued on the ground. 

Kat was walking, looking where she was stepping, when she suddenly ran into Yusuke's back. She was about the shout at him, but he turned quickly and put a hand to her mouth. Then he pointed. 

About two branches from where Yusuke was standing, the trees suddenly stopped. They had reached a clearing, and, apparently, their destination. For there was a demon near the center of the clearing, and he had a human behind him. All five of the forlorn humans were slowly assembling around the demon. 

Kat looked closer, and managed to get a better look at their adversary. Shingo was a small, skinny thing, only about the height of the humans' waists. He looked malnourished, but Kat knew that that was just the way some demons looked. He had scrawny wings and small, unthreatening-looking horns on his head, elbows, hands, and stubby tail. In all, he didn't look very menacing, and Kat wasn't impressed. 

However, she forced herself to think. Appearance didn't always dictate the ferocity of a demon, especially ones known to have psychic powers. Kat weighed her chances, and came to the conclusion that she would eventually have to go into the clearing no matter what course of action she took. Therefore, it didn't really matter how stealthy she was as she made her entrance. Unfortunately, Yusuke made his entrance first. 

He fell headfirst out of the tree and landed in a small explosion of leaves. 

Shingo snapped his head around just as Yusuke leaped back up, and Kat felt her hatred for the spirit detective deepen a little. 

"So!" Shingo said loudly, looking first at Yusuke and then sweeping the trees with his eyes until he found Kat. "Koenma has found me out, has he? But look! He only sent a couple of low-level detectives to fetch me back! That will be a mistake that will prove fatal." He pointed his finger at the two. "Kill them now!" 

Kat leaped from the tree. "I am _not a spirit detective!" she shouted. Then she noticed that the five humans were advancing on them. With a shudder, she almost took a step backwards. Then she caught herself. She refused to look scared in front of Yusuke on a case she had made out to be so easy. _

Just then, Yusuke registered on the one human that wasn't moving, the original hostage. While he didn't look completely normal, he definitely wasn't like the other five. He had a blank stare and was unmoving, but he did not radiate despair and apathy. He simply looked bored, as if he was paralyzed. Yusuke looked paralyzed too, for some reason. 

"It…" he stuttered, "It's _Ghost!" _Botan chose that moment to step out of the trees. 

"He's an innocent hostage," she scolded, "So it's your job to save him whether you like it or not!"

"Innocent?" Yusuke shouted, "That guy's hardly innocent! He's a complete maniac! He doesn't go to school, he picks fights with everybody, and his dad lets him carry a _gun around! And I heard he _uses _it if someone makes him mad!" Shingo looked very upset that no one was paying attention to him anymore. _

"Attack, my minions, attack!" he shouted, trying to get everyone's attention again. He didn't realize that Kat had already sneaked around his advancing line of attackers and was now behind him. 

With one quick movement, Kat grabbed both of the demon's wrists behind him and said, "Shingo, you are under arrest!" Then she stopped and looked very surprised. Shingo slipped easily out of her grasp. 

"Fool!" he said, "Did you think you could defeat me so easily? I have powers beyond your wildest imagination!" Kat gasped, realizing that she could not move. She was completely paralyzed. 

Meanwhile, Yusuke was trying to figure out what to do with the five advancing humans. They didn't look particularly threatening, but he wasn't sure if he should punch them. They might have some hidden power. Instead, he chose the point in the line that looked weakest and shoved his way quickly through. To his surprise, he felt a little shock of cold but met no further resistance. He looked down just in time to see his hand pass right through the nearest person's arm. 

"What the…" Yusuke shouted, but he was interrupted from his discovery that their opponents were insubstantial by Kat, who had not moved since she had tried to grab Shingo but had retained the use of her voice. 

"What are you waiting for, you stupid detective?" she screamed, frustrated, "Get him! Get him before he runs away or something!" Yusuke stared at her. 

"How come you don't?" he asked, and Kat spat at him. 

"Idiot!" she screamed, "I'm fucking paralyzed! The little creep made it so I can't move! Now get him!" But then Yusuke stopped too, because one of the five insubstantial humans had come up behind him and reached _inside _him. He felt the person's weak little fingers close around his heart as a shock of intense cold, as though the person was trying to pull something from him. It was staring at him with longing. He was so vibrantly alive, and it was so sad and pale. 

As Kat looked on, she realized that she was getting some movement back in her fingertips. She flexed them as much as she could, and then she began to bend her elbows and wrists. Shingo didn't seem to notice, but his spell was wearing off. 

"Yes!" he cried, "Yes! Feel as my servants suck the life from you, detective! Feel my awesome power! I have you both completely under my control! You will suffer! The whole world will suffer! I…" 

"Oh, _shut up!" Kat screamed at the top of her lungs, and she twisted her wrists all the way around so her palms were facing Shingo. "Prison of Fire!" With that, her palms glowed red for an instant and then a circle of flames sprang up around the demon, effectively trapping him. Shingo shrieked loudly and hurried to the middle of the prison, where the heat was less scorching, then quickly renewed the spell of immobility on Kat before she could follow up with another attack. _

All five of the ghost-people were surrounding Yusuke. They all had their brittle fingers around his heart, and, as Shingo had said, he could feel his spirit energy quickly leaving him. He sank to his knees, feeling suddenly weak and intensely cold. 

However, Botan was still very free and mobile. Swinging her bat menacingly, she raced past Yusuke and Kat and headed right for the demon. Kat saw what she was doing, and brought down her fire wall at just the right moment. With a sound like a hammer hitting a slab of meat, Botan brought her metal bat down on the point of Shingo's skull. 

As Shingo fell to the ground, unconscious, Kat found herself so suddenly free that she promptly overbalanced and fell on her face. Yusuke quite suddenly found the little grips at his heart weakening and fading. Everyone looked up as the five forlorn humans floated upwards and melted away into sparkles of light, leaving behind an overwhelming feeling of relief. Yusuke got to his feet, realizing that his strength had come back when the people had let go of him. 

"What were they?" he asked quietly. 

"Ghosts, most likely," Botan answered, shouldering her baseball bat. Kat looked horrified. 

"What?" she gasped, "That little demon was a necromancer?" She looked at Shingo, who was lying on the ground with a glazed expression, and gave a little shudder. 

"No," Botan said, "He was simply a psychic. It is not very difficult for someone like him to create such servants as those. He needed only to be present at their deaths, so he could bind their souls to him before they crossed into Spirit World. So instead of finding final peace, the ghosts linger on Earth, knowing nothing but to obey the one they are bound to. They covet life, which was why they try to take it from others. Had the spell not been broken, and the ghosts released, they would have sucked Yusuke dry until not only was his spirit and life energy gone, but his very ghost as well." Yusuke shuddered, and Kat's eyes got as big as dinner plates. 

"Of course," Botan went on, "Had he been a true necromancer he would have been able to infuse those souls into bodies fashioned of clay or even their own old bodies. A slave made in such a way has no free will and not much in the way of intelligence, but they are considerably stronger than simple ghosts and can attack physically besides feeding off spirit energy." 

"So he wasn't a necromancer," Kat sighed, "Just a stupid demon who thought he could rule the Earth with a few low-class psychic abilities." 

"Bingo!" Botan said, using her trademark word. 

"But if all his spells are wearing off now that he's fainted," Yusuke asked, "How come Ghost still isn't moving?" Everyone looked at the boy. Yusuke was right. He was string into space blankly. Instead of a plaintive, sad look on his face, he was expressionless. Besides that, he was a normal human of about fifteen. He was tall, muscular, had blonde hair that stuck out in spikes over his face, and was wearing dusty, unremarkable clothes. 

"Hmm," Botan said, looking him over, "He seems to be under some sort of hypnosis, the kind that doesn't simply wear off. The only way to get him back to normal that I know of would be to make Shingo do it, but I don't think that's going to be a possibility." Yusuke looked delighted. 

"This is perfect!" he crowed, "Let's just leave him, please! Seriously, this guy's no good! I know him. He's a total punk, and he lives to make other peoples' lives miserable! It would be that much of a loss if we just let him stay here forever!" 

"No," Botan strongly disagreed, giving Yusuke a dirty look, "I'm sure Koenma will know a way to put him back to normal. Let's take him with us while we turn in Shingo." With that, she tossed both the sleeping demon and the blank boy over her flying paddle and sat behind them, making sure they didn't fall off. "Hang on!" she shouted to the others, and Kat and Yusuke grabbed the end of the oar just as she lifted off. 

****

As Botan touched down back beyond the clouds, Kat felt a sudden overwhelming feeling of being cut off. She was, briefly, back in her own home, but she was forever separated from it because of her assignment on Earth. The most she would ever see of it now would be at times like these, when there were reasons to consult with Koenma. 

As they made their way to the castle, Yusuke dragging Shingo and Botan supporting Ghost, Kat wondered if she would ever get to have a real case, that would be remembered, and that she could complete with her friends. Then she shook off her despair and turned to Yusuke. 

"Yurameshi!" she called, "How come you called that guy Ghost? That's not a human name, is it?" Yusuke shrugged. 

"He's got a real name," he assured her, "I heard it once. I can't remember though, because he likes Ghost better and that's what everyone calls him. I'm telling you guys, it would be better if we just left him like this! He's a real nut case. He'll hit you as soon as look at you! I heard he's shot a couple of guys for trying to pick his pocket."

"Well," Kat countered, "I've heard that Detectives can actually be talented, so I guess you can't believe everything, huh?" Yusuke ignored her, and Botan led them through the gates. 

"Koenma-sama?" Botan said as she entered his room. Koenma was busy stamping papers. Yusuke tried not to laugh. Kat bowed. 

"Oh, Botan!" Koenma said, looking relieved to have an excuse to ignore his papers, "So, did you all handle the case?" 

"Oh, yes, sir!" Botan said as she motioned for Yusuke to hand over Shingo to the nearest of Koenma's assistants. "But there's a problem. His hostage doesn't seem to have been released from hypnosis. We weren't sure what to do about it." Koenma jumped down from his perch and began to examine Ghost from all sides. Meanwhile, Kat was looking behind her at the busy room they had just come through. It was full of the Spirit World workers, who were brightly-colored, horned beasts who seemed to be constantly moving. 

Then, two relatively human figures walked by the door, right in front of Kat. They both stopped. One was a girl with deep blue hair that was ear-length and a large jewel set in her forehead, and the other was a boy with a ponytail. His ears were pointed and his eyes didn't stay any one color. They were both wearing a uniform like Kat's (though she wasn't wearing it at the time), and they had Spirit Agent badges. 

"Kat?" the girl said, disbelieving, "Kat, I've been wondering where you went! I haven't seen you since we took our exams and became agents! Where have you been? And what the hell are you wearing?" Kat mouthed wordlessly (she was still in her school uniform, the sailor skirt). It was two of her friends from school. She couldn't bring herself to tell them the truth. 

"Didn't you hear?" the boy said, staring at Kat, "She got assigned to Earth! We're not going to see much of her anymore. Come on, we still have to finish all the paperwork from that last case." With that, they both left. The boy refused to meet Kat's eyes, and the girl looked back with heartfelt sympathy. Kat felt numb. She turned back to Koenma with dry eyes and a weeping heart. 

"It seems that this is just residue from the spell that's making him like this," Koenma concluded, "All he needs is sufficient shock to jolt him out of it, I think." Yusuke brightened. 

"Shock?" he asked happily, "Like would a punch work? I've been waiting so long for an opportunity like this!" With that, before anyone could stop him, Yusuke punched Ghost full in the face. Ghost took two steps backwards, looked around, and blinked several times. 

"Ehh…" said Koenma. 

"Oh dear," Botan added. 

"What the fuck?" Ghost choked, and ran out the door of the office. 

****

Several minutes later, Kat had managed to knock Ghost out with a quick blow to the back of his neck, but not before he had led everyone on a long and tiring chase all around the castle. Ghost had now seen what few other living humans had seen, and most agreed that it was all Yusuke's fault. 

"Just get him back to Earth and put him somewhere from where he'll know how to get home," Koenma sighed, "And we'll hope he thinks it was all a dream." 

By the time they all got back, it was getting dark, and as soon as they dumped Ghost near his house Yusuke dashed off for home. Kat followed dazedly. Her encounter with her old friends, who were obviously on their way to becoming great spirit agents, had shaken her deeply. 

"Hey!" Yusuke called in Kat's ear, "Are you paying attention?" Kat glared at him. 

"Oh, I find everything you do a source of constant fascination, especially that little stunt that led to an unauthorized human running all around King Yama's palace, but I must admit that I wasn't listening to that last thing you said. Please repeat it so that I might be amused." 

"I was wondering if you wanted to sleep at my house," Yusuke said, ignoring Kat's unbridled scorn, "You don't really have anywhere else to go, do you?" Kat stopped for several seconds, surprised that Yusuke was being relatively nice. 

"Umm," she said, "Sure!" She began to follow him inside. 

"Where did you sleep last night anyway?" he asked, "I didn't see you at all between the time you slunk away while Kuwabara and I were fighting and when you came and found me this morning to drag me off to school." Kat smiled weakly. 

"I didn't want to come to some human for help, so I slept behind your house." Yusuke stared at her. 

"But it rained last night!" he protested, "Didn't you get cold?" Kat laughed humorlessly. 

"I'm a pyromancer, moron!" she said, slapping him lightly on the side of his head, "I've never been cold in my life!" 

"You can't feel cold?" Yusuke asked, disbelieving. 

Kat sighed. "I didn't say that!" she said, "I can feel temperature, it just doesn't bother me. You can feel that skin is warmer than stone, but neither is painful to touch. Well, I can feel that a glowing brand is warmer than, say, liquid hydrogen. But they don't bother me, see?" Yusuke stared at her, not sure what to say. Kat grinned at him. "Why did you think I didn't get burned when you tossed me in that flaming trash can?" 

Yusuke decided not to try to figure that one out. "You can have the couch," he said, "I'd let you have my bed, but if you can sleep behind a house in the rain, I don't think it'll make that much of a difference." He ran upstairs before Kat could protest. Kat sat on the couch. It was dusty and hard, and smelled of cigarette smoke and alcohol. _Brat, she thought, and tried to make herself comfortable. _

****

The next day, Kat was walking to school alone. When she had gone in to find Yusuke, she had found that he was already gone, and since she was already going to have to hurry to make it to class, she didn't want to go look for him. As she neared the school gates, she heard the five-minute bell ring. She picked up her pace to a run, right as a tall boy with blonde hair stepped into her path. 

Her books went flying, but her training had taught well enough that she managed to keep her balance. She looked at the boy she had run into, ready to cuss him out. 

It was Ghost. 

"You!" Ghost shouted, and grabbed her shoulders so she couldn't get away, "Who are you? What was that place? What the hell happened last night?" He looked a little hysterical. Kat wasn't sure what to do, but her training about Earth had made it clear that she was not allowed to talk to any human about Spirit World. Since it was still early, and she wasn't really thinking straight, all she could think to say was, "I can't tell you, I can't tell you!" 

Then, panicking, she smacked his hands away and created a flash of light that temporarily blinded him. "Sorry!" she called as she raced into school. His shouts followed her until she ducked into the building. 

"What were all those pink and blue and orange demon guys with horns? _Is that what happens when you die?" _ 

****

That evening, Ghost further lived up to his reputation. Yusuke had been wandering around the town when a hand jerked him down an alleyway, behind a dumpster. Yusuke suddenly found the barrel of a Gulch 9mm pressed up against his throat. At the other end of the gun was a boy with wild hair, dirty clothes, and a very peeved expression. Yusuke made a sound like a hamster being squeezed. 

"Start talking!" Ghost ordered, tilting Yusuke's chin up with his gun, "Where did you take me last night? And who were those people?" 

"Holy shit!" was all Yusuke could say, pointing weakly to the gun, "Is that thing fucking loaded?" Ghost prodded Yusuke between the eyes with it and hefted it a couple of times, grinning. 

"Umm…" Yusuke went on, "If you're not going to shoot me, could you put the gun down?" Then he thought for a moment longer. "And put it down if you _are_ going to shoot me too." 

"No to both," said Ghost, which really didn't answer whether or not he was planning on shooting. He shifted his aim to between Yusuke's legs. "Now start talking or you'll be singing high soprano!" 

Yusuke kicked the gun away, and ran out of the alley like all the demons on Earth and in Spirit World were on his heels. He heard the gun go off, and a bullet pinged off a concrete wall close to his head. He began to run faster, and bullets continued to zing around him. 

"_Yurameshi__!"__ Ghost bellowed, firing the gun one last time as Yusuke safely rounded a corner, "You'd better watch out! I'll get you sooner or later!" _

****

"I'm telling you, the guy was shooting a gun at me!" Yusuke insisted. Kat and Botan weren't listening. "Botan, can't he get in trouble for trying to blow a spirit detective's head off?" Botan gave him a look. 

"Yusuke, don't you think you're over exaggerating?" Botan said, "I mean, I'm sure he wouldn't really have shot you." 

"Aren't you listening?" Yusuke countered, "He _did _shoot me!" 

"You're not bleeding," Kat pointed out, "I think you'll live." 

"I didn't say he hit me!" Yusuke growled, "But he needs to be stopped! That kid is unstable!" 

They continued the discussion all they way to school. It was the following morning, and a Friday. Kat was looking forward to the weekend, even if it meant that she would have to spend more time with Yusuke. She was beginning to hate Earth school with a passion. 

By the time they got to school, the girls were completely convinced that Yusuke was grossly embellishing the story, and Yusuke and Kat were beginning what promised to be a heated discussion about why Kat had to sleep on the couch. Yusuke finally took off in disgust, mumbling to himself. 

In first period, Kat took her usual seat beside Keiko. Keiko leaned over and whispered, "Yusuke told me that you're staying for a while." Kat shrugged. 

"That's nice," Keiko went on, "If he's going to keep getting into trouble, I'd like for you to watch out for him. You seem to have a lot more sense than he does." She smiled, and Kat grinned weakly. 

For the first time, Kat tried to really pay attention in class. She decided that, since it looked like she wasn't going to get to go back to Spirit World any time soon, she might as well get used to school on Earth. But she soon realized that no one else was really listening, so she gratefully stopped trying. Instead, she started to look around at her classmates. 

One was a boy that reminded her of Ghost. He sat in the back, and looked like he would rather be somewhere else. Another was a girl with glasses, who was passing notes down to Keiko. There were lots of different kinds of humans here. Then her eyes fell on a boy sitting about in the middle of the classroom. He looked ordinary. He had strangely-colored hair that looked almost a silver-violet in the sun coming through the window, but otherwise she wouldn't have given him a second glance if not for one thing. He was looking straight at her. 

Kat and the boy both quickly looked away. Kat turned to Keiko immediately. "Keiko!" she whispered frantically, "Who's that boy with the weird hair? He sits about two rows up and five seats over from us." Keiko looked for a moment, and then said, "Oh, Trunks? I don't know him very well. Why do you want to know?" 

Kat didn't answer, but stretched so she was bending over the back of her chair. That way she could see behind her without looking too suspicious. This time he wasn't looking at her, so she let herself get a better look. His hair was ear-length, and violet-colored as she had seen before. He had a pointed nose and a stern mouth. His eyes were very blue. 

Then he turned to look at her again, and didn't look away when he caught her staring. They locked eyes for a few seconds, him inclining his head a little and her leaning over the back of her chair. She leaned a little farther back, and saw him smile. _Kami-sama, he's cute! she thought to herself, then mentally slapped herself. What was she saying? He was a stupid Earthling and that was the end of it! She tried to sit back up and her chair fell backwards. _

"Oww!" she shrieked as her head hit the desk behind her. She felt blood come to her mouth and tears to her eyes. No matter how much one trained under even the toughest senseis in Spirit World, falling backwards onto your head still hurt. She heard the class roar with laughter and suddenly had the overwhelming urge to just stay underneath her overturned desk. 

Finally, she rolled over painfully and began to heave her desk upright. Almost subconsciously, she glanced over at Trunks again. He was laughing softly while still managing to look concerned. She tried to smile back at him, but slipped and fell again. 

****

Later that day, Kat was in gym. Since it was the only class she was any good at, she was happy. Pyromancers weren't known for their physical strength, but she was very fast, and she sometimes had to catch herself before she drew too much attention. This usually wasn't as much of a problem, though, as her habit of catching things on fire, so she didn't worry. 

That day they were playing baseball. Kat was leaning against the fence in her buruma and waiting her turn to bat when her eyes fell on the same boy she had seen first period. He was manning third base. She suddenly felt an overwhelming wish that he would see her, and at the same time hoped desperately that he would not. 

Then she was up to bat, and she didn't know what to wish. 

She took the bat clumsily, and felt it slipping around in her grip. She stepped up to the plate without taking her eyes off third base for a second. She wasn't even aware of what the pitcher was doing. Then he looked at her again, blinked, and smiled. And she couldn't see anything at all until the baseball bounced off her forehead, leaving her sitting in the dust nursing her twice-injured head. 

****

"Let me get this straight," Yusuke laughed later, after Kat had explained the two sizable bumps on her head (leaving out certain details), "In first period you fell backwards off your chair, and hit your head on the desk behind you. Then, as if that wasn't enough, you get beaned by an oncoming baseball while staring off into space! You are so clumsy! Is everyone from Spirit World as hopeless as you?" Kat stared at the ground. 

"Yeah, hopeless," she muttered. Yusuke stared. 

"You're lying," he said, and Kat jumped. "I can tell," he went on, "Because normally if I said something like that you'd threaten to burn something up. You're trying to hide something." Kat stayed obstinately silent, refusing to admit to anyone, especially Yusuke, that she had been distracted by a boy.  

"You know, Yurameshi," Kat growled, giving him a token threat to get him off her case, "I hear the bandaged look is in. And that's lucky for you, cause bandages is what your going to be wearing if you keep this up." Yusuke smirked with satisfaction. 

But Kat was troubled. She was supposed to be professional, an agent of Spirit World come to earth by a perverse twist of fate. But now she was acting like a silly schoolgirl. The last time she had noticed a boy in her class was several years ago, in her school preparing her to become a warrior. 

Could she possibly be starting to feel so at home here? 

Kat shook her head violently. Of course she didn't fell at home on this miserable planet! Yusuke was an arrogant brat who happened to stumble on a job as Spirit Detective. He was a gangster, and at the very dregs of human society. Keiko was a better specimen, but she was still a human, and could never be associated with. Her teachers were idiots, and her classmates were like babies compared to what someone their age would have been through already in Spirit World. Even Botan was part of it. She called herself a ferry-woman of the River Styx? She had taken Yusuke on as her little project, and now seemed to like Earth better than the Reikai itself! They were all inferiors, all stupid. She hated them all. 

And even as Kat felt the familiar burn of resentment flare back up inside her, she savored it. This is what she was supposed to feel. How could she have even begun to fool herself into thinking the Earth was home? 

"Baka Ningen!" she spat at Yusuke, suddenly maddened, and with that she launched herself into the nearest tree so quickly that to Yusuke it looked like she had fizzled out and disappeared. 

"What's wrong with her?" he wondered, and kept walking. 

Kat slept on a roof far away from Yusuke's house that night. 


	3. Old Friends, New Enemies

The next day was a Saturday, so Kat took off for the forest without so much as swinging by Yusuke's house to throw something at him through his window or shout an insult to wake him up. Yusuke didn't mind, and was rather relieved that he didn't have to deal with her. She had seemed really angry for some reason (no reason, in his opinion). So without even considering looking for her, he slicked his hair back and donned his usual green outfit. Soon he was happily wandering the streets. 

He had a surprisingly normal day, and even he had to admit that without Botan or Kat around, his life had been pretty boring (despite the odd fight). He was heading home and it was already dark when the first really strange thing happened. 

He had to stop suddenly when something came into his path and, though he was walking as though he didn't care if he stepped on it or not, it didn't move. Finally, he looked down to see what it was. 

Yusuke blinked and stared at the little cat that had a reddish hue to its fur with a green bow around its neck, which was looking adoringly up at him. Cats usually didn't usually look adoringly at him. Actually, they usually hissed and tried to scratch him. The cat turned and began to trot away. It stopped after a few seconds and looked back at him expectantly. Yusuke blinked. 

_Wait a minute._ He thought. _Cats don't look expectantly . . ._ The cat started to look slight annoyed. _They don't look annoyed either. ._ . The cat trotted back up to him, sat then looked expectantly up at him again. Yusuke stared down at the cat.

"What? You want me to follow you or something?" he asked. The cat gave him the look Kat usually did when he stated the obvious. Yusuke rolled his eyes. "Alright. I get the picture." The cat looked mildly pleased. Then it turned and strolled off. 

Yusuke followed at a leisurely pace, trying to make it look as though he really wasn't following the cat with the green bow. Finally, they entered a semi-dark alley. The cat trotted over into the shadows and disappeared. 

"Well?" Yusuke asked. "What did you want to show me?" A bright flash issued from the shadows, momentarily blinding him. If he hadn't seen the shadow on the moon above him, he would've been toast. 

As Yusuke stumbled to avoid the attack, the cement where he'd just been splintered with a crack. As he righted himself, he saw a figure land mere feet from the splintered cement. The figure stood and turned. 

"Well, I always thought you humans were stupid and gullible, but I have to say, you take the cake," she stated. The figure was a fairly short woman with piercing, green, cat-shaped eyes and wearing a green dress that cut off at about mid-thigh with two slits up the side to the woman's waist. The dress had no sleeves, which made the smooth skin on her arms have a bit of an eerie glow in the moonlight. There was a loop of fabric at her hip where a scabbard with a long katana hung. What was very peculiar about her was not the fact that she'd almost appeared out of nowhere, or the fact that, even though her features looked about his age, she was only up to his shoulder. 

What was most peculiar was that this woman had the features of a cat. She had a pair of reddish cat ears sticking out of her head, a brownish tinge on the end of her nose, and a reddish tail swished to her ankles. A green bow the same color as the earlier cat's tied her curly red-colored hair back at the nape of her neck. 

"Uh . . ." Yusuke started. "This may seem like a stupid question-"

"Probably," the woman confirmed. Her voice had a slightly sultry tone to it. Yusuke rolled his eyes. "You know, Kat used to do that a lot," she added wistfully. 

"You know Kat?" Yusuke asked. 

"Used to. But that's not the point. What's your pathetic question?" 

"Um . . . out of curiosity . . . are you that cat I saw earlier?" Yusuke asked. The woman rolled her eyes (ironically looking just like Yusuke as she did). 

"No stupid. I'm the talking elephant you saw flying in the sky." 

"But I never saw…" Yusuke started, but the woman interrupted. 

"It's called sarcasm, you idiot. Of course I'm that cat. Now, if you're quite finished, my mission is to kill you." The cat woman leapt high into the air over his head. "And I always succeed on my missions!"  Yusuke jumped out of the way with a yelp as the woman came down, obviously intending to bash his head in with her foot. Yusuke rolled to the side, but then returned to his feet. 

"What the…" Yusuke started to exclaim, but was cut off as he had to dodge a swipe of sharp claw-like nails that grazed his cheek.  The cat-woman leapt back, her lip pulled up in a sinister smile. 

"Next time, these claws of mine will rip your head off," she snarled gleefully. She leapt at Yusuke a second time, but this time her attack was stopped by a large fireball that came sailing towards her. The cat-woman leapt out of the way, but not before the attack caught the end of her dress and singed it. The cat-woman landed gracefully a few feet away, looking down at her dress in annoyance. "Well damn," she sighed, "I just had this washed too." The cat-woman looked over to where the fireball had come from, and, upon seeing Kat standing there (who looked slightly shocked) she smiled that same sinister, mocking smile. 

"Well look, if it isn't little Miss Backup. Still takin' care of the babies I see." The cat-woman laughed. Kat seemed to still be in shock. 

"Tsu-Tsunami?" she exclaimed, looking as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing. 

"In the flesh." Tsunami said, still grinning that awful grin. It was then that Kat seemed to come out of her reverie.

"You can't be Tsunami! She vanished!" Kat exclaimed. 

"Faked my own disappearance. Easy enough to do if you know how and have the right... connections." Tsunami snickered. Kat deflated visibly.

"God, Tsuna-chan. What's happened to you?" she whispered. Tsunami just smiled again, then took off. Kat growled, suddenly angry, then took off after her. Yusuke stared after them for about two seconds, before following behind. As she ran, Kat drew something off of her belt that almost looked like a walkie-talkie. "Mondo . . . I found her," Kat said tersely into the little black thing. 

"Over." was the only reply. Kat stuck the walkie-talkie thingy back on her belt, and then continued after the woman. The woman she thought had been her friend. 

They finally ended up in another darkened alley, a high fence separating the woman from freedom. Tsunami landed on the fence, jumped to a nearby roof, then faced Kat. She knew Kat did not have the jumping power she did, and therefore could not reach her. 

"Dammit! Come down here and fight!" Kat shouted up at her. Tsunami just smiled, but her smile faded as she caught a flash of silver in the moonlight. Tsunami barley brought her arms up in time to block the attack. Yusuke stared in surprise. Another cat person! This one was a male, about 5' 7" with long, wild brown hair tied back into a braid, though two brown cat ears stuck out of his hair. On his wrists he had some sort of contraption that looked like long steel claws. Yusuke saw Tsunami lean back and kick out her foot, sending the other cat man into the air and over her head. The cat man gracefully did a flip, then landed with the silence of the cat he seemed to be on the roof a few feet away from Tsunami. Tsunami smiled the same smile at the man, and spoke. 

"Ah, I see. Mondo joins the cavalry," she mocked, "And how have you been, Sugar?" 

"Shut up," the cat-man named Mondo growled at her, "You aren't Tsunami." Tsunami laughed at his statement. 

"Hate to break it to you, Sugar, but I am. And I know everything about you." Tsunami mocked. "You're attack style is one of a hidden weapons technique, and you usually don't care for hand-to-hand combat. You're favorite food is ramen, especially the instant kind, and your favorite desert is mocchi. You like to ride on the Ferris wheel and hate roller coasters. You like to go on missions that involve thinking and don't really care for missions that are just pure brawn and no brain." Tsunami blinked innocently at him. Mondo looked stunned. "How am I doing so far?" 

"The real Tsunami said that she had devoted her life to fighting demons. She would never do the things you're doing!" Mondo shouted at her. At that comment, Tsunami's eyes seemed to become unfocused for a second, and she looked at him blankly. 

"That's right . . ." she whispered. A second later, she seemed shake herself out of it. "No, no, no. The OLD Tsunami said that. But not this Tsunami. Oh no . . . I've got a new set of rules now. The ones that I live by. And nobody . . . I mean nobody, is going to hold me down." Tsunami took something off her ring finger, then tossed it to Mondo. Yusuke saw it glint briefly in the moonlight before landing in Mondo's shocked hands. "That is why I won't be needing that anymore. If you know what's good for you, just stay away from me, okay? Pretend I never existed!" With that, she disappeared. Mondo stared at the thing in his hands, his eyes hooded by his bangs. Suddenly, he turned, and with a howl of an angry cat, punched his fist into the roof he was standing on. 

"Mondo, what is it?" Kat called up to him. Mondo jumped down to her, then held out his hand to show her, as Yusuke peeked in for a closer look as well. Kat's eyes widened and she gasped. Yusuke only frowned in reply. 

"It's a ring of some sort." He said, once again, stating the obvious. Kat stepped on his foot. "Ow!"

"Shut up!" she growled at him. 

"Naw . . . it's okay Kat. He doesn't know." Mondo sighed heavily. Kat looked pityingly at him. 

"C'mon Mondo . . . you're gonna want a bowl of ramen." Kat told him, pulling him away as he tossed the ring into a corner. Yusuke looked over to it. Eventually, curiosity won over, and he ran over and picked it up and stuck it in his pocket . . . . 

****

                Tsunami seemed to fizzle into the room like a broken TV set, finally becoming solid. She landed gracefully on the floor, not making a sound. The silence in the room stretched like a taut rope, until Tsunami said, "You know what, Rhint, if you think you're hiding, you are mistaken." A husky laugh filled the room and a man came out of the shadows.  He was about the same height as Mondo, and wore a grinning metal mask that covered his entire face. He was wrapped in a long cape with robes underneath, and not one bit of flesh was visible, even though it was hot and stuffy in the stone room. It must have been horribly uncomfortable, unless he was hiding from something other than cold. 

                "Damn . . . thought I had you fooled that time," he said, rubbing the back of his head, sounding as if he would be smirking if his face were visible. Tsunami untied the bow in her hair, letting the reddish tresses spill around her face. 

"You have to wake up pretty early in the morning for that," Tsunami told him, setting herself down on the couch. She shrugged. "Even then, it'd be tough." Rhint clenched his fists once, and then relaxed as he resumed his quiet self-confidence. He didn't really like being sized up too much . . . it was bad for his ego.

"Care to test that theory?" he growled, reaching for a long whip that was coiled at his hip. Tsunami smirked, pleased that she'd pissed him off once again. She stood, acting as though this was a waste of her time. She flicked her hair over her shoulder, and gave him a smirk. 

"Ready when you are," she smiled. The two glared at each other, then leapt, simultaneously, towards the other. The two drew back as if to attack each other, but just as they moved to strike, they bounced off a large barrier. Tsunami and Rhint landed across from each other with a thump. "Ow . . ." Tsunami wined, rubbing her nose. "What the-?"

"You two should not be fighting," a low voice drawled, "Tsunami, why is it that you failed to complete the mission I sent you on?" Tsunami flipped her hair again. 

"There were complications," she drawled uninterestedly, "It was no big deal. I'll get him next time." 

"Complications or no, I expect my orders to be followed." The voice sounded so angry that Tsunami was suddenly afraid. 

"Complications…" Rhint muttered under his breath, sounding pleased that Tsunami was in trouble, "If you ask me, this bleeding heart freedom fighter didn't have the guts to do what needed to be done." 

"It's not my fault!" she insisted, "That dumb Spirit Detective had some friends that showed up." The voice was silent for several seconds. 

Then, "I hope you remember what is at stake here. You will follow my orders, or suffer the consequences." Tsunami stared at the ground.

"Of course." 

****

                Yusuke fingered the ring in his pocket as the cat-man, now wearing a bandana to hide his ears, slurped down his tenth bowl of ramen. 

"How much are you going to eat?" Yusuke asked, looking bored. Kat stomped on his foot again. "Ow! If you step on my foot one more time I swear I'll—"

"Would you shut up!" Kat hissed in a whisper. "You can tell how much he's depressed by how much he eats! Obviously he's very depressed, so leave him alone!" Yusuke scrunched up his face in a look of disgust. 

"Hey you! Cat-boy!" he said, nudging Mondo under the table. Mondo lowered his ramen bowl and looked at Yusuke in mild interest. "Who was that girl anyway? You know, the one with the cat ears!" Mondo blinked at him, half a noodle still hanging out of the side of his mouth. Kat looked about ready to kill him.  Mondo set the bowl down as Kat raised her fist to pound Yusuke.

"Kat, leave him be. He was there. He has a right to wonder." Mondo told her. Kat froze mid-punch, glancing at Mondo. Finally, she sat back in her seat. Mondo sighed, leaning forward. "That woman, Tsunami . . . she is," Mondo laughed humorlessly. "Well, _was_ my fiancée." Yusuke frowned. 

"So? What happened?" he asked. Kat replied for Mondo, because it looked like he wasn't about to speak any time soon. 

"Tsunami was a friend of mine. I've know her ever since I've joined the force . . . at least, I thought I knew her." Kat sighed. "About four months ago, she disappeared. Many speculated that she'd been killed. I mean, even at school- I mean our academy for Spirit Agents- and stuff, it was dangerous. Youkai are everywhere in Spirit World, and deaths at the school weren't exactly unheard-of. But Mondo and I didn't think so. If a really powerful demon had come anywhere near the school, we would have known. We were all in our final year, and we would have been told so that we could look after the kids and everything. There were five-year-olds in some classes, and it was our job to protect them… but anyway, she was more than strong enough to deal with low-class youkai, like you saw. So Mondo and I have been on the lookout for her for four months . . . and now she finally appears . . . God, I would almost prefer that she had died…" Kat was staring distantly out the window. 

She stared for a long time, looking sad, and a single tear rolled down her cheek. Mondo went back to eating ramen furiously, and Yusuke tried to look decently concerned until it became boring and he wondered when they were going to leave. He didn't have long to wait. 

"Oh, shit!" 

Kat suddenly sat up ramrod-straight and looked horrified. Yusuke and Mondo noticed immediately and jumped to look. Yusuke looked out the window where Kat was now pointing energetically and he, too, suddenly looked terrified. 

Ghost, who was just outside the window of the noodle restaurant they were in, turned, recognition dawning on his stunned features. As he turned all the way around, a Desert Eagle handgun also became visible. Kat and Yusuke flinched visibly. 

"Oh, no!" 

"Oh, dear." 

"What's going on?" Mondo asked. 

Kat grabbed Mondo by the wrist and stood up. "We're going, now!" With that, all three exited through the door that was farthest from the one Ghost was now quickly approaching. Kat looked terse, Mondo looked confused, and Yusuke shouted over and over, "I told you we should have killed him when we had the chance!" 

****

By the time they lost Ghost, it was late. Yusuke looked furious, Mondo was still confused (as no one had taken the time to explain anything to him), and Kat was looking for a likely roof to sleep on while pointedly ignoring her two companions. Yusuke opened his mouth to say something, but Kat held a finger up quickly, interrupting, "Don't tell me! We should have killed him when we had the chance and it's all my fault, right?" Yusuke closed his mouth again. 

Mondo tried next. "Kat, I'm getting tired. If you aren't going to tell me who the boy was, can we at least find a place to sleep?" 

"My house is right over there," Yusuke put in, jerking his thumb to the side, "Just a few blocks away." Kat was about to call Yusuke a creative name and clamber onto the nearest roof to sleep on, but then she began to contemplate the prospect of a bed, even a couch, or anything softer than the top of a building. 

"Fine," she spat, "So long as your mother doesn't ask questions." 

"She's probably too drunk to wonder what a crazy bitch and a guy with cat ears are doing in the house anyway," he assured her. Kat swatted at the back of his head. 

"I'm not a bitch," she said uninterestedly, "And as long as Mondo wears his bandana…" She stared at Mondo. "Shit…" she moaned suddenly. Mondo looked alarmed. 

"What?" he asked. Kat pointed at the top of his head. Then Yusuke noticed too. 

"Oh. He's _not wearing his bandana," he observed. _

"It must have come off while we were running!" Kat fretted, "Oh, man! What now?"

"Well," Mondo suggested, "It's late, so there's no one around. If we hurry, maybe no one will notice." They all began to hurry. Unfortunately, just as they rounded the corner, Mondo had to stop quickly to avoid crashing into a spacey-looking girl who was clutching a large bag of groceries. Before Mondo could hide his ears, she reached up and yanked one of them curiously. Kat, her brain racing, miraculously managed to remember a completely random bit of information from one of her classes about Earth. 

"It's a coz-tum!" she blurted quickly. 

"She means a costume!" Yusuke added. He had caught on to how important this was, as Kat was sweating bullets, and Mondo had frozen up completely. In fact, if this girl didn't buy their explanation, it would be a major violation of Spirit World law. 

"Oh," the girl muttered, "Then did you come from a party?" 

"Yeah!" Kat babbled, "A costume party! With lots of costumes! And people dressed up! In costumes!" She trailed off nervously. The girl blinked slowly. 

"Then what are you?" she asked. Kat stared, trying to figure out what she meant. The girl tried again. "What are you dressed up as?"

"Um…I, uh…that is to say…" Kat stammered unhelpfully. 

"A psychotic bitch," Yusuke offered. The girl blinked again, now staring at Yusuke. 

"Oh," she said again, "What about you?" 

Before Yusuke could say anything, Kat butted in, "The village idiot." 

"Oh," the girl said one more time, and everyone held their breath. "Okay, then." And she walked away. Everyone let out a collective sigh. Mondo stared at the two of them. 

"Well," he observed, "That was stupid."

****

The night passed uneventfully. They got to Yusuke's house with no further problems, where Yusuke found a baseball cap for Mondo in case his mother came in. Mondo flopped on the couch and seemed to be instantly asleep, and Kat glared flatly at Yusuke until he sighed and told her that she could use his bed. Yusuke tried to shove Mondo off the couch, but the latter, without waking up, turned a little and hissed. Yusuke tried again and was rewarded with a shallow scratch across his cheek from Mondo's claw apparatus, which he was still wearing. He decided to sleep on the floor. 

The next morning everyone was feeling a little better, so they went for a walk while they tried to decide what to do next. 

"If she tried it once, it makes sense that she'll try it again," Mondo pointed out, "Whatever her objective, it's obvious that she wanted Yusuke dead." He spoke in a flat tone of voice that made Kat worry. He was clearly still getting used to thinking of Tsunami as an enemy. 

"Well," Yusuke put in, "So we're just going to wait for her to try and kill me again? Why don't we make the first move this time?"

"Cause we don't know where she is, dimbulb," Kat said through her teeth. She was happy to be working with Mondo again, even if it was only temporary, but Yusuke's presence was still a constant reminder of her imprisonment on Earth. After all, Mondo would probably be gone as soon as the Spirit World learned that he had left. 

"We need to think of _why!" Mondo continued, "I don't understand why she would do something like this. I have a feeling that if we can figure out her motive, we'll figure out how to stop her. She's not a bad person." _

"What I want to know is why she's trying to kill _Yusuke,"_ Kat replied, "I mean, if you're going to be an assassin, at least assassinate someone who's worth something. Besides, she doesn't even know Yusuke!"

"I know!" Yusuke agreed sarcastically, "If she's had to put up with you for most of her life, I don't see why she didn't try to knock _you _off." Kat swatted halfheartedly at the back of his head. 

"What if she's working for someone else?" Mondo put in before Kat and Yusuke's verbal tension became physical. But then the full impact of what he had said hit him. "Yeah!" he continued, "That makes sense! What if she's being controlled? Then it would be a good idea for whoever's doing the controlling to make her kill someone she isn't close to. You know, to make sure of her loyalty." 

Kat looked pained. "Sorry to burst your bubble, pal," she said, "But if she was being controlled by mind tricks or magic, then the one behind it still wouldn't have known all those things about you. Besides, it takes a lot of power to do something like that, especially if the target is as strong-minded as Tsunami. He, or she for that matter, wouldn't have wasted power making Tsunami talk to us so lengthily." Mondo looked crestfallen. 

"What if she's being blackmailed?" Yusuke asked. Kat and Mondo thought about that for several seconds, then stared at Yusuke as if he had sprouted carrots out of his ears. 

"He's right!" Kat exclaimed, sounding surprised, "It's the perfect explanation!" 

"Then what's she being blackmailed with?" Mondo wondered. He thought for a few seconds, then snapped his fingers happily. "It must be one of our lives, either Kat's or mine, or maybe both! That's why she didn't go through with killing Yusuke when we showed up!" 

Kat and Mondo stared excitedly at one another, then turned to stare at Yusuke again. 

"How did you think of that?" Kat demanded, "You don't know anything!" Yusuke chose to ignore her final comment and her apparent astonishment that he had had the idea. 

"I've had to work against blackmail before," he said, "Rival gangs and teachers use it a lot. The problem is, until we figure out what she's being blackmailed with, it doesn't matter. Even if you're right, and it's one of your lives, we still don't know how this guy plans on killing you, right? If we can't guard against it, it's useless." 

That sobered everyone a little, and they continued to walk in silence. 

"Well," Kat said suddenly, clapping her hands in a let's-get-to-work kind of way, "Obviously the only thing to do is to go on like nothing has happened. Just stay on your guard all the time. But we're not going to get attacked as long as we stay together, so we've got to split up. We'll only learn more when we get attacked next." Mondo looked a little nervous. 

"But where am I supposed to go? I don't even know the way back to Yusuke's house!" he pointed out. 

"She's only going to try to go after me, right?" Yusuke said, "You two go off somewhere and I'll wait for her to show up." 

Kat nodded her agreement. "Fine," she said curtly, "Be careful." The boys stared at her, and she jumped a little. 

"I mean…" she added quickly, "Not that I _care! _But knowing you, you'll go all macho and stupid, and I know that if I had an excuse like hers I'd use it to kill you! And if you die, I'll have to answer to Koenma! I'm supposed to be baby-sitting you, remember?" She scowled at both of them. "Meet back at Yusuke's house in two hours! Go! And quit laughing at me, I can see that!" 

****

A half hour later, Yusuke was getting bored when he realized that he was being followed. It was only a strange feeling, but it kept up even after he had rounded a few corners and ducked through a building. Finally, he entered an old warehouse and stood in the middle of the floor. 

"Alright," he shouted, "Whoever you are, come on out!" He tensed, looking around for sharp claws to streak toward him or an energy attack to strike. Instead, a tall figure appeared out of the shadows and answered him. 

"Yurameshi?" he said, sounding surprised, "What are you doing here?" Yusuke blinked a few times. 

"Kuwabara?" he asked, equally surprised, "What do you mean, 'what am I doing here?' You were following me!" 

"No I wasn't!" Kuwabara insisted, "It was something with huge spirit power. I felt it when I was walking, so I tried to follow it. I even saw it once or twice, like a shadow. It was running along the rooftops." 

"Your friend has excellent spirit awareness," a voice suddenly said, "I intended for only you to notice my presence." Kuwabara jumped and Yusuke whipped around to face the sound. Tsunami stepped out of the shadows. 

"So, back again?" Yusuke shouted, "You should know that I won't go so easy on you this time!" Tsunami ignored him, and continued as if he hadn't spoken. 

"I guess I'll just have to kill you both now," she said, "But that's not so bad. After all, it's one more baka ningen where we don't have to worry about him." But even as she spoke, her face looked intensely sad, and she shook her head back and forth continually. Yusuke hesitated. Then Tsunami mouthed slowly, soundlessly, "He. Can. Hear. Me." 

"Why do you want to kill me anyway?" he asked quickly. If whoever was holding her captive could hear what she said, he would have to try to get information out of her while pretending that she had done nothing but threaten him. "I don't understand. If you're so evil, why not try to kill your psycho-bitch friend or your kitty-eared fiancé?"

"Tell me where they are and maybe I'll knock them off next," she said, looking intense. 

"They're safe." 

"Are they?" And she looked at him pointedly, tilting her head as if trying to give an idiot a clue. Yusuke realized instantly what she meant. Kat and Mondo weren't safe. They had been right. It was their lives that Tsunami was being blackmailed with. 

"Maybe I'll let them die in a gallant fight, going out in a blaze of glory," Tsunami went on, "They'd like that, wouldn't they, those trained heroes. Or…" She paused, and gave him another 'hint-hint' look. "Maybe I'll come quietly in the dark, and get them in the backs when they aren't expecting it, like an assassin in the dark." 

"What do you mean by that…" Yusuke started, but Kuwabara cut him off by shaking his shoulder. 

"Hey, man," Kuwabara hissed, "I'm sure this is important, but I've gotta tell you…" Yusuke shoved him away. 

"Not _now, idiot!" he shouted. Kuwabara didn't give up. _

"That girl," he said, "She's not the shadow I saw on the roof." Yusuke turned to clock him, but was flattened as the realization of what he had heard sunk in. Even Tsunami looked horrified. 

"What?" Yusuke demanded. 

"Yeah," he confirmed, "It didn't look like her. It was taller, and wearing a cape." 

A new voice, coming from high above, greeted his words. "How interesting," it said, "I _am impressed. I was under the impression that my skills would allow me to pass undetected among ningen, but you were able to see me. You must have a tremendous sixth sense." A figure dropped to the floor from the ceiling, where it had been sitting on the lip of a large hole. It landed right in front of Tsunami, facing her, so that all Yusuke could see was a long cape. "Of course," it concluded with a smug tone of voice, "That won't help you now." _

"Rhint!" Tsunami shouted, an edge of panic in her voice, "What are you doing here?" At his sudden appearance, she stumbled back and almost fell, but was able to right herself and face him. 

"The boss sent me after you to make sure you followed through on your duties," he snarled, "And it's a very good thing. If I hadn't been able to see you, we never would have guessed that you were in fact passing the Spirit Detective information. Such a clever girl. I'll bet that, given enough time, you would even have given him enough to find our little hideout." 

"I wouldn't…" she whispered, "Please…" 

"Shut up, you worthless piece of filth!" he shouted, and backhanded her viciously. With a whimper, Tsunami crumpled to the floor. "I'll deal with you later," he told her, prodding her with his shoe, "But first, Detective, I believe I'll have to kill you. You simply know too much, and that's never safe, is it?" 

Yusuke tensed, and muttered out of the side of his mouth, "Kuwabara! You've got to go find Kat. She's that girl you saw with me in the alley a few days ago. Do you think you can track her down by recognizing her spirit power?" 

"I only saw her that once," he answered, "It won't be easy." 

"Try," Yusuke said simply, "And when you find her, tell her to forget the plan, and go to my house right away. I'll meet you guys there in a little while. Go quick, okay?" Kuwabara nodded tersely and ducked behind some boxes, and slowly began making his way to the exit. 

"Think fast, Detective," Rhint said, sounding amused. His voice brought Yusuke back to the situation at hand just in time to notice that Rhint had snapped his whip idly towards Yusuke's face. Yusuke reflexively ducked his head sideways, and the whip missed him. "Not bad," Rhint sneered, "But your luck won't last long. I'm much faster than you." 

Meanwhile, Tsunami pretended to still be dazed on the ground from Rhint's blow while she watched the scene unfolding. _Crap,_ she thought to herself. Now she would have to do some quick thinking. 

Yusuke watched Rhint's whip carefully, flinching at it's every small move. Rhint noticed this, and quickly scooped up a marble-sized stone from the ground and chucked it at Yusuke's face. Yusuke wasn't watching for it, and it bounced off his forehead, making him hesitate for an instant. In that instant, Rhint lashed his whip out and around both of Yusuke's ankles, bringing him crashing to the ground. 

"Out of luck, Detective," Rhint sighed, "Really, I had expected more." 

In an instant, Tsunami got a perfect idea. 

He snapped his whip towards Yusuke, who was still on his back and winded. But to Yusuke's surprise, he was not cut to smithereens by Rhint's rope, but instead, found a smaller body blocking the blow. Tsunami was crouched in front of Yusuke, the katana she had been wearing held in front of her. The whip had wrapped around the middle of the katana, preventing it from hurting either Yusuke or the sword's wielder. Rhint tugged on his weapon, but to both his and Yusuke's surprise, the whip did not come free. Nor did Tsunami, who had a tight grip on her katana, move an inch. The little minx was stronger than she looked.

"I'd get outta here if I were you." she told Yusuke calmly, not taking her eyes Rhint. Yusuke frowned.

"Huh?" he asked. Tsunami rolled her eyes, exasperated. 

"You heard what I said. Are all you humans this dense?" she asked. Yusuke wrinkled his nose at the insult. This time, she turned to look at Yusuke. "Look, if I can kick your ass, than he," Tsunami motioned with her head towards Rhint. "Will have no problem doing the same." Yusuke flushed at her veiled insult. 

"You cannot kick my-!" Tsunami sighed and cut him off. 

"Look, do you have a death wish or something? I can only hold him off for so long." True to her word, Tsunami was slowly starting to slide forward towards Rhint, her grip on her katana loosening.  

"But what about-?" Yusuke began to ask, but Tsunami cut him off. 

"I can take care of myself. Tell Kat that the door will open at 1800 hours. She'll know what to do." Tsunami told him, turning her gaze back to Rhint. Yusuke opened his mouth to say something, but thought better of it, then turned and retreated. 

                "Well, well, well." Rhint drawled. "Looks like the kitty finally shows her claws." Tsunami spat like a cat. 

"You fool." Tsunami replied. "You messed things up so bad! I had him right where I wanted him! It's a good thing I salvaged what was left of my plan after you jumped into it!"

"What?" The puzzlement in Rhint's voice was evident. Tsunami straightened, sheathing her katana. 

"You really are an idiot," Tsunami went on, "Couldn't you see that I was playing him along? Everyone wants to believe that I'm still a good guy, right? All I had to do was act the part a little, and he trusted me perfectly! He would have let down his guard, and I would have been able to draw him right into a trap. I was planning on bringing him back to the boss alive. A prisoner is much more useful than a corpse anyway." 

Rhint looked nervous, like he might have really done something wrong. "But then why did you tell him that the boss can hear what we say? You could have just talked to him and drawn him in even easier. The only reason you would do otherwise is if you really thought you were going to get away with it!"

Tsunami flinched. She hadn't remembered that, and didn't have an excuse ready. But she kept up her unconcerned façade perfectly, and flipped her hair a little while coming up with an answer. 

"Oh, come on!" she drawled, "No one's that stupid! If I didn't let on that the boss had some kind of control over me, he would never have bought it." Rhint now looked thoroughly guilty, believing that he really had messed up Tsunami's perfect plan. Tsunami almost sighed in relief. 

"Okay, hotshot," he muttered, "So what's the new plan? You said that you found a way to salvage it."

Tsunami was ready this time. "Remember how I told the human that the door will open at 1800 hours?" Under his mask Rhint raised an eyebrow as if to say "Ya, so?" Tsunami rolled her eyes as if the answer was obvious, but continued anyway. 

"Well, the door I was talking about was the door that connects the Spirit World and the Human World. When that door opens, it's a Spirit Detective's job to guard that door and make sure no spirits or humans cross over that doorway. When Kat hears that, she'll think that I was trying to get her some piece of vital information, and she'll be there to try to put a heroic end to our plans. But the gate isn't opening. That's a load of bull. But now we know that they will be at a certain place at a certain time, and we can get there early and make ready a nice little present for when they arrive, if you catch my drift." Rhint raised his eyebrows, and then grinned evilly beneath his mask. 

"I gotta hand it to you, kitten. That's a pretty good plan." 

****

Yusuke ran back to his house. Tsunami's message meant nothing to him, but obviously it would mean something to Kat. He knew that whatever it was, it was clearly important, so he ran as fast as he could in case every second counted. 

 He flew through the door and almost crashed into his mother. 

"Yusuke!" she shouted, "Watch where you're going, can't you ever just walk somewhere? And how about all these people? You never even asked me if it was okay that you invited a bunch of friends over!" Yusuke stared at her a little blankly. With the memory of recent events still pounding his head and his mother's absence for the last few nights, he had totally forgot to provide for the possibility that she might be home. 

"S-Sorry, mom. I'll tell you all about it later," he stammered, and rushed past her into the living room where everyone was waiting. 

"Tough luck, man," Mondo remarked, but he seemed to find the exchange between Yusuke and his mother amusing. 

"Okay, okay," Kat interrupted, "I'm sure this is very interesting, but what happened? Why did you call us all back here?" 

Before Yusuke could begin his story, Kuwabara said, "Y'know, I'm pretty sure that there's a story behind this, and I want to hear it! I'm not just going to run around and be your messenger boy, I want some answers! I mean, come on Yurameshi! It's not like we haven't fought demons together before!" Everyone stared at him. 

"He knows about demons?" Kat asked, sounding furious, "And Spirit World and all the rest?" Yusuke nodded sheepishly. Kat looked ready to explode. "He. Is. A. NINGEN!" she shouted, "How could you…" 

"Oh, don't worry so much, Katsuyo!" said a chipper voice. It was immediately followed by its owner, Botan, who rode in through the window on her oar. "Kuwabara is a special case. Yusuke didn't break any laws, so don't go lecturing him!" 

"Botan?" Yusuke said, "What are you doing here?" 

"Well, first of all," she told them more seriously, "I'm looking for Mondo. Spirit Agents aren't allowed to just sneak off to Earth when they feel like it, even if they aren't on an assignment." Mondo tried to make himself small. 

"But that was only first," she continued, "Second of all, I got a message from Koenma, and he told me that there has been a sudden epidemic of minor demons attacking almost everywhere! Every single Spirit Agent is currently assigned to a case, which almost never happens. They are minor demons, so the cases don't take long, but as soon as the Agents get back they have to get going again, because there are always plenty of new cases waiting. It's pandemonium!

"We have tracked the center of all this madness to Earth," she continued, "Apparently there's a mastermind hiding somewhere, and we think that all these attacks are just a prelude to the true attack. But even so, we can't spare anyone who's already working in Spirit World. That's why we want Mondo to stay here. After all, we're going to need all the help we can get here on Earth."

After discussing what Botan had just said for a while, Kuwabara reminded them all of his request, and Kat explained why she had come to Earth and the situation thus far. After that, Yusuke continued with his story of how he had spoken to Tsunami in the warehouse. 

"The gate to Spirit World!" Botan breathed, "They must be planning to open the gate and let all the demons through to Earth! But how did they get so much power? It should be impossible to open the gate from the outside!" But Kat and Mondo just laughed. 

"Oh, she's not talking about _that gate!" Kat insisted, "That's only what she wants the bad guys to think!" _

"Right!" Mondo went on, "She's talking about the gate of opportunity!" 

"What's that supposed to mean?" Kuwabara asked. 

"And how do you know that?" Yusuke added. 

"It means what it sounds like," Mondo said, shrugging, "The gate of opportunity is opening, so this is our opportunity to save Tsunami!" 

"We know because that's what she always used to say," Kat added, "She would tell us that our gate would open some day and we would get the case of a lifetime. Whenever she said 'gate' she meant opportunities." 

"Then we should be there at 1800 hours?" Yusuke asked, "That's when the opportunity will present itself?" Kat stared at him. 

"Of course not!" she scolded, "Are you dense? She said that within hearing distance of the other guy, what's-his-name, Rhint? Okay, so that's what he'll think. Now he's planning on us being at the Gate between Earth and Spirit World at 1800 hours, which is six PM. He'll want to set a trap for us, so he and Tsunami will be there a few hours earlier then that." 

"Tsunami will be playing along, of course," Mondo added, "Because that will keep the bad guy happy and we won't use his trump card to punish her." 

"Trump card?" Kuwabara asked.

"Sure," Mondo said, "That's us, me and Kat. If the bad guy thinks he's been betrayed, he'll kill us." 

"By the way, Detective," Kat said, "Did she manage to tell you how this bad guy was planning on killing us in such an event?" Yusuke shook his head. 

"No," he said, "She just hinted that your lives were in danger." 

"Well," Kat sighed, "It can't be helped. In any case, we need to be at the Gate of Judgment right now, so we can be ready when Rhint and Tsunami show up!"

****

"Well, here we are," Rhint sulked. He was still very put out after Tsunami had berated him. It was five PM, and Tsunami had just led him to the gate of betrayal. The doors of the gate towered above them, stretching on to what seemed like forever. The place had a very eerie feel to it, with the colossal gates and the ethereal clouds that they stood on. 

Tsunami glanced around nonchalantly. She couldn't see her friends anywhere, but she supposed that meant they were hiding in wait. She tried not to think about what would happen if they weren't. What if Kat and Mondo hadn't understood her message fully? What if they were going to walk up to the gate confidently an hour from now? What if she would have to watch her best friends fall into a dangerous trap and a gruesome end before she could even warn them? It was all a matter of timing. If she showed her true colors too early, they would be killed before she could get there to protect them. If she did too late, then they would fall into the trap Rhint was planning and she would have to watch helplessly. 

Or, of course, they might have understood her perfectly. That would mean that they were waiting somewhere nearby, waiting for the gate of opportunity to throw itself wide. 

"By the way, kitten?" Rhint said, startling her out of her musings, "What did you have in mind for this trap? Pitfall? Ambush? Magic barrier?" 

"You can't dig a pit in cloud, fool," she hissed, "And you can't work the kind of magic a barrier would need here. The Gate provides too much interference. After all, it's a masterful work of spirit power as well as art." 

"However," said a chipper voice, "An ambush seems like a perfect plan, doesn't it?" Botan leaped out of her hiding place in the thick clouds, closely followed by Kat, Mondo, Yusuke, and Kuwabara. 


End file.
